REFLEX SYMPATHETIC DYSTROPHYAlthough uncommon, reflex sympathetic dystrophy can be a crippling disease characterized by swelling and severe pain of an extremity, at times following what would otherwise have been trivial trauma. Treatment options including injection techniques and medication have met with only limited success. Having demonstrated its usefulness in clinical studies, HBO offers an effective treatment option in treating reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

To understand how HBOT works for RSD, you need to understand the disease itself. RSD is neurological in nature and yet it manifests itself in physical symptoms. What that means is that the disease needs to be treated with two approaches. One goal is to restore circulation, reduce inflammation or edema, and reduce the swelling in affected limbs so the limbs can recover. The other goal -- in order to eliminate the disease -- is to heal the brain. When you get a paper cut, the central nervous system tells your brain there is pain. This pain is rooted in a physical injury. Sometimes however, a relatively small trauma can mysteriously trigger a reaction from the sympathetic nervous system, which is in a different part of the brain. RSD phantom pain is read through sensors in the sympathetic nervous system. (The sympathetic nervous system is what senses phantom leg pain in an amputated limb, for example.) Hyperbaric Oxygenation Therapy can make the switch in the brain back to the central nervous system and heal the brain, without the use of prescription pain medications that only treat the symptoms and do not heal the brain.